Thank You!

This is why we do what we do! We have the best customers! Even though we haven't been able to supply enough eggs to our stores for many, many months, our customers are always asking about us and at the markets we get so many thank yous!

We received this yummy lemon dessert and a custom designed card at the last market in Nauvoo. This retired couple came every week for tomatoes. They were so cute! He would get out of the car and open her door. Then they would come pick out their tomatoes. The way they paid was just adorable! He would shell out the bills, and she would give us the change. So darling! Anyway, the card had their picture along with a picture they took of us and a picture of one of our heritage tomatoes. We were so blessed!

Thank You  and God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Bye Bye Garden

Dear Garden, 

I will miss you, but it is time for you to go to sleep. I'm off to the east coast to take care of a couple of sweet grandbabies while a third is being born. It's supposed to be cold while I am gone, so I doubt there will be much of you left when I get back.

Love, Grama Sue

For the last couple of weeks, I've been working really hard to get things somewhat buttoned up before I took off. 

The black berries have been pruned and trellised and the prunings have been replanted. Next year I should have a nice crop of black berries and the year after that, they should be coming out my ears :)

I planted 6 elderberry starts and a whole bunch of hazelnut prunings that a neighbor gave me. I also splurged and bought a couple of hibiscus bushes. I absolutely love the dramatic gigantic flowers these bushes put out. Hopefully, I'll be able to figure out how to propagate them so I can have as many as I want and maybe even sell some.

The garlic has been planted for next year and I decided to try a little experiment with potatoes. This spring, I had a several volunteer potatoes from potatoes that I had apparently missed last year. I actually had a few potatoes to sell at the first market this year. It seems I'm always wanting to plant potatoes about a month before they have them in the stores, so I saved a few from this year and planted them deep in one of my mounds and then buried them under a ton of leaves. I will cover it early next year and see if I can get an early crop of potatoes.

I used leaves to super mulch my herbs and mums. If it doesn't get to cold this winter, they may winter over again. Just in case, I made sure I brought a little bit of each inside, 'Cept the mums ... I didn't get the mums. I really should try to get a pot of mums if it's not too cold when I get back. 

This year I finally found some calendula seed. Several years ago, a friend of mine cut her finger almost to the bone. She used a salve on it made with calendula flowers. In a week, it was almost healed. I've been trying to find the seed for a few years now. In August this year, I finally found some. I bought two packages. I planted one and kept the other for next year, just in case I didn't get any flowers before it frosted this year. Just a few weeks ago, they started blooming so I was able to get enough for an experimental batch. They are drying now. When I get back, that will be one of my projects. 

Other projects will be:

Cutting and canning my swiss chard

Pulling the tomato plants

Re-mounding my rows, adding compost and mulching

Figuring out what Christmas ornament I am going to make for gifts this year. 

Making and canning chili, spaghetti, jams, butters and other goodies out of the produce I froze this summer.

And assessing. Yuck. This will be my last year as the township assessor. Yeah! Next year I'll be able to focus lots of other fun stuff over the winter, like crafts, writing and promoting eggs :)

For the past several months, I've been working 7 days a week between my eldercare job, the markets and assessing. For right now, I'm gonna relax for a couple of weeks with my grandbabies. We will see if I can handle that. I''m not much good at sitting around. I'm sure we can find something to do ... :)

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Jerusalem Artichoke

My Jerusalem artichoke is blooming! I used to have a patch of these many years ago, but we tore them out to rearrange the garden and I never got around to finding a new place for them. This spring, my good friend Juanita gave me a whole bag of them. I planted them, but the deer dug most of them up. I had 2 that I must have planted to deep for the deer to detect because they came up after the longest time. I had forgotten that they bloom! I thought I probably had just been babying some stray wildflowers. Got on the internet and searched for images of  Jerusalem Artichoke and calmed my fears. Thank God and Al Gore for the internet!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue